The Feeling Remains
by ImaginaryPoet
Summary: COVEN. Title by Stevie Nicks. A series of one-shots (mostly) that follow Cordelia through her thought processes as she learns her role as Supreme and beyond. Foxxay, eventually. That is a spoiler.
1. Chapter 1: Rain, AKA The One with Cats

A/N: I don't own anything. I also use swear words because I am a grown up and I can.

**Hi everyone, somebody suggested that I turn this fic into a series so I have. This will be (mostly) one-shots that follow in order (I'll let you know if one doesn't). Thanks to all for reading, but for those who have already read the first chapter, there is a second that is brand new. I'm on tumblr under the same name so feel free to send prompts and/or follow.**

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It's raining. That's the first thing she notices when she rises from her bed in the early morning hours. It's fitting, she thinks, because it seems that ever since she was old enough to know anything at all, there's always something just off, always something that tarnishes her waking hours ever so slightly. This day, it is the weather threatening to mar her mood, and for that she is grateful. For years, she was accustomed to the wrath of her mother or some other entity that deemed her unfit to lead a life that was anything other than miserable at best. She can handle one day of rain.

She cherishes the time she has to herself, even if it is the early morning. She spends the time before her many –she still fights to believe how many there are- pupils awaken remembering the days when it was herself and four other girls, one of whom is now long gone and another is off in LA doing who could even guess what. The fifth, she does not ache to remember, because that's the one she can never forget. Her first true friend in she doesn't even know how long, is never too far from her mind. She does not need to spend her mornings remembering that.

She is not alone, she smiles, as the Coven's cat population have all taken to joining their Supreme as she sleeps and carries out her far too early morning routine. She knows that it is most likely because she has the biggest bed and is the most open to their affections, though she likes to think that the felines flock to her in order to honor her in their own way.

She sighs with longing as she recalls Myrtle, the first headmistress to welcome the animals to the academy. She recalls a time when she was a girl, around 11 or 12, that Myrtle had taken her out to help with errands. Cordelia had taken to reading alone in her room outside of classes, because it was clear to her (especially after a rather gruesome run-in with a group of older girls) that nobody wanted anything to do with the terribly shy and "untalented" daughter of the Supreme.

Myrtle, who had already felt a strong motherly instinct toward the girl, felt it her duty to take the young witch under her wing. So they went, running around town gathering supplies for their brood that did not fall under the jurisdiction of either their housekeeper or Spalding. Young Cordelia followed dutifully as Myrtle weaved in and out of shops, stopping in question only when they suddenly paused at the entrance of an alley.

She can still see the scene in her mind, as Myrtle asked her if she had heard the gentle 'mew'. The two stepped into the space between shop buildings and around the dumpster to the place the soft noise had come from. That was when they saw a mess of fur in the form of a mangy mother cat and her two small kittens in a box that read, 'free 2 gud hom'.

She hears Myrtle's voice as she tells her that they _must _take them all with them.

"A great Himalayan will bring such joy to our home! You know Dear, a cat is a great friend to a witch. They are perceptive creatures. They know when we need them and we need not even say a word. They have their own magic, I'm sure of it. This is a wonderful happening indeed!"

And so that is how Fluffy, Scruffy, and Joe made their home at Miss Robichaux's, with other strays joining their ranks as the years pressed on. She gazes down into the garden, where their stones have long since been placed and nods reverently toward the only salvation from bitter loneliness outside of Myrtle that she had ever known in her youth.

"Everyone needs a place to belong," she remembers herself telling a very young Nan, when the new girl had asked the brand new headmistress about all of the cats lounging in the garden.

Cordelia smiles wider at the pile of cat that always seems to find the way to the foot of her bed at night. Myrtle had brought them in to be friends to her when none of the other girls would. They haven't let her down yet, she ponders.

But it's memories like those that force the image of messy blonde curls and striking blue eyes lined in brown to the forefront of her mind once again. 'Misty always loved the cats,' she can't help but think. Then again, Misty always loved everything. She tries not to consider how far that love extended, because some things are too difficult for even the Supreme to bear.

She's proud of the strives that Queenie and Zoe, her new council, have overcome. They've grown over the past year in ways that surprise even her. She's torn over Nan's untimely death and often wonders why she's unable to contact her spirit though she has tried tirelessly since ascending the figurative throne. She hopes that Nan is at peace. She worries for Madison, though she knows she shouldn't. It's just that when she tries to reach out into the universe to check on her, to make sure that she is safe even though she has betrayed the Coven time and again, she feels her presence in the house and not in Hollywood and it doesn't make one bit of sense.

But she's trying. She's trying to be a good leader, a good mother to these girls, many of whom no longer have anyone but her to rely on, and it's hard. When the press asks her about what she's doing, she's the beacon of positivity. But in the mornings when she only has herself to answer to, she hopes that she is somehow enough.

She glances at the clock on her nightstand and knows that soon, the pitter-patter of feet belonging to the youngest of her charges will soon fill the halls, and the groans of the older girls fighting for additional sleep and over shower stalls will awaken everyone else. Deciding to start her day for real, she composes herself. The soft splats of rain against her windowsill do not faze her. She knows very well that the rain is a metaphor for her life and of her beloved Coven. The rain will wash away the darkness and give life to newness. The earth will be nourished. The sun will return. She can handle one day of rain.


	2. Chapter 2: Fucking Supreme

**Hello everybody, this is a short installment to my series of one-shots that will set the scene for future chapters.**

**Please enjoy.**

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"Find everything okay, Sweetpea?"

That's what set her off. The older woman with a soft southern drawl and a bright warm smile, simply asking if she had gotten what she needed in the small shop, had sent her into tears. Without word or a second glance, Cordelia pulled a $50 bill from her purse, handed it to the woman rather forcefully, and left a stunned shopkeeper in her wake.

"She lost a friend a while back," Zoe explained.

The woman nodded in a way meant to convey that she understood, though her face still read confusion. Zoe had taken the change and packages back to the car, where the Supreme continued to weep in the front seat. Kyle, still unaware of whatever had happened, looked expectantly at Zoe, who then reassured that the two of them would gather the remaining supplies.

She did not acknowledge their words. Although she had been thankful for their efforts (not so much Kyle trying to comfort her by _petting_ the top of her head), there was little in this world that could have made much difference to her at the moment. She knew why it made her so upset, and that upset her further. She knew that she should know not to question the fates by now. They had been cruel and unusual to her all of her life, though they did bestow to her the greatest honor any of her kind could hope to inherit. She figured that for whatever it would be worth to have the answers to all of her why's, leaving them little reason to come back and do her wrong carried far more value.

So when her tears had finally dried up, she allowed herself a deep breath inward. She pulled the air into her chest and held it there for a long moment, admiring the way that it made her heart beat almost as desperately as it had all those times in the greenhouse with the one person she no longer lets herself think about. Except for right now, and every fucking day since they had met.

As always is the case, her despair turns to anger. She's so angry for so many reasons, but right now, she's particularly cross about her emotions. More specifically, the reasons why she must feel the way she does. And she laughs heatedly, because there's that 'why' again, and because any and all questions that she's ever had have never been answered in a way that has made her feel anything besides further confusion. And that's made her angry. And there she goes again.

She hopes that her thoughts will reach out into the universe, so far that maybe some entity who takes mercy on the sorrowful souls such as hers (she knows it's dramatic, but between Fiona and Myrtle, she was bound to receive a bit of it somewhere) will hear them and attempt to give her clarity, just this once. So she asks the never-ending void,

"Why has my entire life been one disaster after another? Why has nobody ever respected me enough to tell me he whole truth about anything? Why is it that every single person I've ever tried to love ends up leaving, or dying? Why have I never been enough? Will I ever be?"

When she's finished mentally screaming into the abyss, the strangest thing happens. She has been a witch for her entire life, as had been her mother before her, and her grandmother before that, and women (also one man, she notes) for generations of her ancestry, so she's seen many things that most others would find abnormal that are very run-of-the-mill in terms of what to expect. But in that moment, she understands completely the sensation that "regular" people get when they see a little more of what her normal is than they should, because what happens is beyond her. Her answer has come.

The answer is in the form of the car radio suddenly coming to life. Normally, she'd discount this as being anything of significance, but right now she's convinced that this is magic and she's the Supreme so she should fucking know. But it's not just that the radio has turned on by itself. It's not just that it is tuned to a station that she knows Kyle had not been listening to before she had run to the car in tears. It's not anything she can even explain. It's Stevie.

Yes, she's known the White Witch for as long as she can remember, so she knows she's not made any sort of mistake. There's really no way she could be mistaken anyway, not after all of those hours in the greenhouse with Ms. Nicks' biggest fan. She knows that she hears Stevie.

"Would you stay if she promised to you Heaven? Will you ever win?"

That's what Stevie asks her. And Cordelia knows that she will. She's just discovered that she need not question the fates to find her answers any longer. She can do whatever she damn well pleases. She's the fucking Supreme.

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**Thanks! More to follow...**


	3. Chapter 3: Die of Grieving

Part III: Die of Grieving

A/N: I don't own anything.

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Her mind had been sufficiently made up from that point forward. She was the Supreme and she was the one making all of the rules. This no longer frightened her. While those who were in her position before it was hers had easily abused their powers she went into it knowing that there had to be limitations set on what was moral. Just because she could do something didn't mean that she necessarily should. Her Supremacy would indeed be righteous, though she would no longer die to herself in order to avoid rocking the boat. She was done with that kind of thing. She was powerful but not power hungry. She was full of regrets but just as full of hope. If anyone could find a way to reconcile the two, it was Cordelia.

She had been meeting with Zoe and Queenie, her brand new council, for the last few months and they had talked together about what it meant to be the sort of Supreme she felt that their Coven needed. She was nervous to tell them about her new mindset, afraid that they would think of her new confidence as her turning into her mother. The last thing anybody wanted was Fiona 2.0.

Still, she pushed her fear aside and pulled out her research. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself. This was the answer she'd been searching for. In her hands, she had a spell book ages old, with decaying pages dusted in Celtic symbols that she had spent days translating and then reading until she found what she needed. She just needed to convince her council that this was the case.

The two entered her office at their agreed upon time, immediately after dinner with the students, who were all in their rooms doing homework or quiet reading.

"What's this about?" Queenie asked frankly.

She knew that something out of the ordinary was about to happen when a meeting outside of their weekly scheduled appointment was needed. Plus, at Miss Robichaux's, something out of the ordinary was bound to happen regardless.

"I need to speak with the two of you about something important and I'm afraid that you won't like what I have to say," Cordelia said.

Zoe smiled slightly in understanding, urging the Headmistress on. Queenie spoke,

"Well, let's hear it, we can't make fun of you until we know what for."

The three laughed. Cordelia was thankful for the break in tension.

"The other day at the store I had a breakdown," she began.

Zoe remembers and Queenie heard about it from the other girl.

"I was so upset about everyone we had lost. I was missing Myrtle and even Fiona. But I couldn't tell you. I couldn't let you see that I wasn't dealing. But then an old Cajun woman called me 'Sweetpea' and I couldn't stop thinking about everything. I just kept thinking about how I had failed Misty," Cordelia confessed, "But it made me realize something. I'm the leader of this Coven. I am its most powerful member. And if there's something that I need, I have the ability to get it."

The two nodded, though unsure of where the Supreme is headed.

"Of course, Cordelia," Zoe conceded, "that's the whole point."

"The point," Cordelia's response, "is that we have lost too many people important to us in all of this. And I have lost more than anyone. But I'm unwilling to suffer any longer."

"Amen," Queenie agreed.

Cordelia smiled brightly at them both before she continued.

"I've found a book, it predates this Coven itself. In it are a set of spells that allow the Supreme to challenge nature and all elements, to use them at her will. One of which would allow a Supreme to rescue a lost soul from Hell."

"You want to save Misty," Zoe connected the dots.

"I have to," Cordelia reasoned, "she doesn't deserve to be there."

"Then you have our full support," Queenie said.

"Anything you need," Zoe agreed.

At that, Cordelia's heart soared. She embraced them both before leaving them in her office while she went off to research materials and supplies she would need to make this work.

"Do you think this will really work?" Zoe asked as the two readied themselves to leave.

"I hope so," Queenie countered, "Miss Cordelia has been a mess without Swampy. I was worried she would die without her."

"Misty did bring a lot of joy to this place."

Queenie laughed at Zoe's obliviousness.

"Girl, you are hopeless."

"What, why?" Zoe questioned.

"Any one of us can blast hippie music at all hours and it won't make Cordelia any happier. She needs Misty for that."

"Because she was her friend?"

"Because she's in love with her," Queenie left the office.

Zoe stood in the doorway for a moment considering what Queenie had said. It made sense when she thought about it. She wondered if Cordelia even realized, but decided that she likely hadn't. She smiled and left the office. She'd be ready to talk her through it once Cordelia figured it out.

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A/N: I'm looking forward to moving along quickly in this story. The person we've all been waiting for is coming up in the next chapter.


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